On Saturday 9th February, Berkshire U9s faced off against Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire and the reigning U9 national champions, Barnet at Dolphin School, Hurst.

Inauspiciously, we had a number of team members called away for EPSCA school competitions and could only muster 12 players, with 2 of the team making their first county representation.

Round 1 saw Berkshire come away with 7½ from 12, narrowly ahead of Oxfordshire on 6½ and behind leaders Barnet with 9. Round 2 demonstrated the consistency lacking in earlier matches, and ended with Berkshire on 15 points, moving further ahead of Oxfordshire on 12½ but losing ground to Barnet on 17½.

With 4 matches against Barnet in the final round, all was still to play for. Fantastic play by the whole team saw Berkshire come away with 10 points out of 12, resulting in an amazing 25 points to Barnet's 24 and a wonderful victory.

With so many excellent performances, I would like to call out our new boys, Gurveen Kapoor and Dev Mohan who both came away with a perfect 3 out of 3.

There is only a short 4 weeks before the EPSCA zonal qualifier where we will face tough opposition from the likes of Sussex and Wey Valley to qualify for the National Championships. I look forward to seeing team members perform at the upcoming training session and SAE events to assist in selection of the EPSCA team.